1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to safety means and more particularly to an improved assembly which prevents children from becoming entangled in window covering control cords and strangling themselves.
2. Prior Art
The dangers of very young children becoming entangled in window covering control cords and strangling themselves is real, as evidenced by publications of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
This problem has been addressed by various patents designed to reduce or eliminate such hazards. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,909,298, 5,504,977, 5,494,092 and 5,473,797. All of such devices are relatively complicated and expensive and rely on laterally separating action to cause parts of the devices to separate as a child engtangled in the cords twists and turns to free himself. Unfortunately, the degree of force necessary for such separating action cannot be controlled with any degree of certainty, so that such devices are less than optimal for their intended purposes.
A greatly improved window covering cord safety assembly is set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 5,715,884. This device depends on an internal spring to precisely regulate the force necessary for complete separation of the control cords from the remainder of the device.
However, there remains a need for a further improvement in such devices. Such improvement should be designed so that complete separation of all but one of multiple control cords from the main body of the device occurs at a predetermined force, but which also causes that one control cord to remain attached to the main body of the device so that the main body of the device cannot be removed and become a choking hazard for a young child. There is also a need for an improved cord safety device which facilitates maintaining multiple control cords in proper untangled parallel alignment during operation of the device.